


New Here

by yukiawison



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Marijuana, New Year's Eve, Post-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Yuki and Kyo bonding time but baby steps, Yuki-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28850904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukiawison/pseuds/yukiawison
Summary: “Do you want to try?” Yuki said, instead. He took another hit and then extended his arm to offer it to Kyo.“Are you messing with me?” he said.“Yes, as soon as you take a hit Tohru-kun’s going to come out here and reenact an anti-drug PSA. We’ve got a whole bit choreographed.”“Shut up,” Kyo said.
Relationships: Honda Tohru/Sohma Kyou, Kuragi Machi/Sohma Yuki, Sohma Kyou & Sohma Yuki
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	New Here

Yuki stepped out onto the balcony a little after 10. He needed air, or at least that’s what he told Tohru when he passed her in the kitchen. She was pouring glasses of champagne already and the apartment was warm with her cooking and the flock of friends chatting in her living room. It was New Year’s. 

“It’s not too crowded, is it?” she’d said, as he’d hurried by her. She knew he got anxious around crowds, even now, though the curse had been broken for years. Crowds made his skin itch, like on packed trains, reaching up to secure a grip on the bar above him, like it was a lifeline. He felt queasy in crowded lecture halls at school, squeezing in seats beside girls, crossing his arms over his chest reflexively, and nearly forgetting to breathe.

“I’m fine,” he said, giving her a genuine smile. He was more liberal with these now, especially with her. She smiled back at him and nodded. 

Yuki took another sip of his beer. He’d had just enough to drink to feel a little lightheaded and loose with his words. Machi was in the living room chatting with Tohru and Kyo’s school and work friends. Uotani and Hanajima were there, and a few others Yuki didn’t recognize. He’d squeezed Machi’s hand in one of their familiar, unspoken gestures before he’d gotten up. She’d met his eyes and nodded. They were both doing alright. She was making conversation. He was laughing, sincerely, at jokes. They held hands beneath the table. It was their usual party routine. They’d been together long enough that she could read him with one look, and he did the same for her. 

At parties past he’d been able to pull her outside before a blush broke out over her face and her hands twitched with a simmering anxiety. She’d found him in corners, hiding in back rooms or by neglected kitchen counters, trembling imperceptibly while people they only vaguely knew continued to socialize. Machi would press a kiss to the side of his face and suggest, firmly, that they make their excuses and leave. 

“Why do you take me out so often?” She’d asked him once, when they were both in college and a friend of his asked them out for drinks and karaoke. They’d left early, as usual, this time because the lights and bright colors of the karaoke bar had given Machi a headache. They were walking home, and her hand was pressed in his. He leaned closer to her, so their shoulders touched. It was a luxury to walk like that. 

“Practice,” he said, looking over at her. It had been cold out, he remembered, and a scarf covered most of her face. He only had a few drinks in him. He’d learned, after many failed attempts, to pace himself. 

Machi’s eyes narrowed, but her lips curled upward in fond amusement. “You mean I’m your training wheels,” she said. “Not very presidential.”

“Oh god, I hope not,” he’d said. 

He was home for New Year’s. In truth, he didn’t quite know where home was now that he’d graduated. Shigure’s house had been sold. The main estate was out of the question. He had most of his earthly possessions (which weren’t much) in boxes and suit cases at Machi’s apartment. Tohru had invited them to her and Kyo’s New Year’s get together over the phone. Yuki figured that Kyo had fought her on his invitation, though his cousin was the type to submit completely to his fiancé’s wishes if she asked him sweetly enough. And, since Tohru Honda was the sweetest woman anyone had ever met, the logical conclusion was Yuki’s inclusion in the night’s festivities. 

Yuki opened the screen door and immediately stepped back. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize anyone was out here,” he said.

Kyo turned to look at him and bristled. He was wearing a black zip up jacket Yuki recognized from high school. It was far too light for the cold, but he had on a gray beanie and red fingerless gloves, both knitted for him by Tohru. 

“I forgot you were here,” Kyo said, bluntly, and Yuki was about to slide the door shut when he added. “You don’t have to run away.”

Yuki smirked. “Are we friendly now?” he challenged. Kyo scowled. 

Yuki had done a lot of thinking about his strained relationship with his cousin. Their daily battles seemed at once childish and still a logical necessity. Kyo was different now, Yuki could see it in the very way he moved. He sat up straight, posture set confidently when he greeted people at the door. He was still loud and brash and argumentative, but good-naturedly so; he no longer treated everyone who took interest in him as an enemy. And when he was with Tohru they looked like adults. He rested open palms on her waist or shoulder, leaning over to hear what she was saying or whisper something in her ear. He watched out for her as she navigated their tiny kitchen. He brought her water, wordlessly, after she finished her first glass of champagne. They were real people with a real home and careers and the effortless demeanors of a couple who’d been together for twenty years already. Sometimes Tohru finished Kyo’s sentences. 

“I didn’t say that,” Kyo said. 

Yuki sighed and leaned on the railing on the opposite side of their tiny balcony. 

“Happy new year,” Yuki said.

“Yeah, whatever. What did you come out here for anyway?”

Yuki stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked up at the pitch black sky. He could see some stars, even in the city. 

He pulled the joint out of his pocket and fished around in the other pocket for his lighter. 

“What the hell is that?”

“I’ll go somewhere else if it’s going to bother you,” he said. “Kakeru gave it to me. It was a New Year’s present,” he said with a shrug.

Kyo’s face flushed. “Are you some kind of a stoner now?” 

Yuki laughed. He only really smoked with Kakeru. At parties, in Kakeru’s dorm room sitting on the floor as he babbled on about one thing or another. Kakeru got even more talkative when he was high, only he talked about weird shit like whether or not fruits and vegetables had feelings, which of their friends was most likely to secretly be a serial killer, or if everyone just ended up like their parents, despite their best efforts to the contrary. Yuki had shuttered at that last one, even though his body had felt all tingly and he couldn’t stop eating the chips Kakeru had bought for them. 

Perhaps it should have been troubling how thrilling it was to be outside of his body—and not in the literal, becoming a rat way—in the way that getting high provided. But, a lot of things about Yuki’s life thus far were troubling, and misbehaving felt oddly liberating. 

“Isn’t your girlfriend here? Does she know you have a-a, you know what I mean,” Kyo said. He recoiled, as if Yuki were holding a weapon and not a hand rolled cigarette. 

“Of course she knows. I got it from her brother,” he said. 

He’d asked her before they left if she wanted to share the joint with him, but she’d shaken her head. She wasn’t even drinking much, instead opting to keep a protective eye on him. Yuki didn’t usually smoke alone, but Kakeru was out with Komaki and New Year’s felt like an exception, somehow, to his rules for how out of it he was allowed to get. New Year’s brought up memories he’d been trying to catalogue and store away some place beneath his skin where they didn’t poke out and hurt him. Yuki felt that his whole body was made of bad memories, that he was nothing more than a shabbily maintained collection of traumatic pieces of the past. That was a dramatic way to put it, maybe, but when people who _knew_ looked at him, he understood that that was all they saw: broken boy, newly freed, still moving with weights on his ankles. 

Yuki lit the joint and took a long drag. Smoke curled around his head and he blinked lazily at the empty streets. Windows were lit in the surrounding apartment buildings and happy shadows accompanied sounds of celebration. 

“What about your asthma?” Kyo said, arms crossed over his chest to defend against the cold or maybe out of discomfort. He eyed him, curiously. 

“Since when do you care about my asthma?” Yuki said. He hadn’t had an asthma attack in years, though he still carried his inhaler. 

Kyo shrugged, apparently conceding the point, and sipped his beer. 

There was a beat of silence between them, where Yuki, suddenly cold and mildly paranoid beneath the stillness that had started to settle over him, almost began to explain himself: the anxiety that New Years’s always brought, the nightmares, his heightened agitation even here, among friends. He stopped. 

“Do you want to try?” Yuki said, instead. He took another hit and then extended his arm to offer it to Kyo. 

“Are you messing with me?” he said. 

“Yes, as soon as you take a hit Tohru-kun’s going to come out here and reenact an anti-drug PSA. We’ve got a whole bit choreographed.”

“Shut up,” Kyo said. 

Yuki drew back the joint. “You don’t have to. I’m not daring you. I’m trying to be courteous.”

Kyo scoffed and then, much to Yuki’s surprise, he took the joint from his fingers. 

“How do I do it?” he said, impatiently. His breath was visible, in little puffs of mist in the cold. Yuki was transfixed for a moment by the absurdity of it all. He and Kyo, sharing, completely voluntarily. 

“Inhale and hold it in your lungs for a little while before you let it out. Don’t overdo it. You’re probably going to cough.”

“I’m not going to cough,“ Kyo said. He took a hit and immediately sputtered out a cough. Yuki took the joint back and handed Kyo his beer. 

“The hell,” Kyo said, when he’d regained his grip on his lungs. “That didn’t do anything.”

Yuki smirked. “Try again.”

They passed the joint back and forth for awhile. Kyo stopped coughing every time, and soon they were down to the end of it. 

“How do you know when you’re high?” Kyo asked. They were both leaning against the balcony railing, meeting in the middle so they could pass the joint easily. Kyo’s shoulder bumped Yuki’s as he turned to look out at the sky. 

“Well, how do you feel?” Yuki asked. He was plenty high himself. He felt like he could feel all the bones in his neck whenever he moved his head. 

Kyo stared blankly into the middle distance for a moment. “I...don’t...know,” he said. 

They looked at each other. Yuki took in Kyo’s red eyes and dazed expression and then they both burst out laughing.

“I think I’m high,” Kyo said. 

“For once, I agree with you,” Yuki said. And they were laughing again. Yuki laughed until he could hardly breathe. His lungs were aching and his face was flushed and Kyo was doubled over in front of him, laughing too. He wondered, absently, how long they’d been outside. Snow was beginning to fall in gentle flakes that caught in their hair. 

Kyo was staring very fixedly at the snow. He shivered. “Hey, do you ever...miss it?”

“Miss what?” Yuki asked. His lungs still burned from laughing. It occurred to him that he’d never laughed like this in front of Kyo. 

“I know that it was hell, but it was also most of our lives,” Kyo continued, vaguely. Yuki thought again of Kakeru’s rambling inquiries, the way his eyes would spark just before he rolled another joint. 

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“The curse, you damn rat. You know what I’m talking about. You’re just being difficult,” Kyo growled. 

“Oh,” Yuki said. He’d forgotten, for a moment, who he was talking to. “Right, I know. I...guess I do, in little ways.”

The street rats didn’t meet his eyes anymore. He didn’t realize that would be something to miss until it was gone. He remembered the liberation he’d felt the day the curse was lifted, how it had brought him to tears. It was freeing, but it was also lonely. Suddenly, his problems were only his own. Suddenly, there was no excuse to shut the world out. That was as terrifying as it was exhilarating. On bad days he did miss the safety of captivity. 

“I was talking to Uotani-san once,” Kyo started, his words slow and calculated. “About how she misses her gang sometimes, even though it was a bad time in her life. They hurt her, but they gave her something to be a part of. Sometimes I miss it, like that.”

Yuki blinked. Even on the margins, Kyo felt that way, that he’d lost something unifying, even if it was toxic.

“Have you told Tohru-kun that?” Yuki asked. He knew he was pushing the bounds of Kyo’s tolerance for him. Even with a recreational peace offering and the hindsight of six years without the curse, this was uncharted territory. 

“Yes,” Kyo said. His voice was strained. “She gets it.”

“I get it,” Yuki said. “I get it completely.” 

Kyo stared at him wordlessly 

The door slid open. “Yuki-kun?” They both turned to face Tohru, whose expression was moving from concern to delight. 

“I didn’t realize you were both out here,” she said, with a smile. If she could smell it on them, she didn’t say, though Yuki could feel the stupid grin that was stuck on his face and knew that the moment he opened his mouth he’d give them away. 

“Air,” Kyo sputtered. “We both needed air.”

Tohru smiled a sly little half-smile that Yuki had never seen on her before. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t freezing,” she said. “The girls want to do a round of shots, if you want to join,” she said. 

Yuki straightened and pushed off of the railing. He looked over at Kyo. “Well now I’m daring you,” he said. 

“You want to do shots?” Kyo said. 

“What, too much party for you, old man? Isn’t your bedtime like 8?”

“We’re the same age!” Kyo shouted. 

“His bedtime is 9:30,” Tohru added.

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Kyo countered. He set his jaw and headed for the open door. “You’re on, you damn rat.”

Yuki watched him wrap his arms loosely around Tohru’s waist as he ushered her inside. She laughed, possibly at the impossibility of Yuki and Kyo getting along, if just for a moment, or maybe because Tohru often laughed when she was reminded of the gentler parts of their shared past, like their challenges and nonsensical insults. 

Kyo said tequila was disgusting and Yuki called him a wuss, so they compromised and did shots of tequila followed by Kyo’s choice of rum. 

It was 11:30. Yuki returned to his seat between Machi and Uotani. He leaned a little on Machi and braced himself with his hands on the kotatsu. It was the kotatsu from Shigure’s house, gifted to Tohru and Kyo when they moved here. Yuki remembered how excited Tohru had been when she told him about it over the phone. 

“I have so many memories around that table,” she’d said. He smiled into the receiver. 

“Dinner arguments?” he said. 

She’d laughed. “I got to know you both there, in that house, at that table.”

He could feel the warmth of Machi’s shoulder pressed to his. 

“Are you okay?” Machi said. 

He nodded. 

“Your waves are different,” Hanajima said. 

Yuki stiffened. 

“Oh my god, he’s stoned,” Uotani said. Yuki glared at her the best he could, which turned out more comical than threatening. She laughed. “That’s hilarious. The prince is stoned.”

Yuki rolled his eyes. “No one calls me that anymore,” he said. He hoped he didn’t look too stupid, though he was crossed to the point where all his words felt honey thick and eager to spill from his mouth. 

“Once a prince, always a prince,” Hana deadpanned.

The girls, except Machi, got up to take the shots Tohru was pouring. Kyo was lurking by her side, looking around the kitchen like he was looking for a fire exit. 

Yuki crossed his arms and laid them on the table, resting his head for a moment atop them. He thought about all the hours he’d spent sitting here, all the meals he’d eaten and tea he’d sipped on nights when he couldn’t sleep. He’d cried at this table, pitiful, shallow tears when he thought no one was home. Here, he’d fallen asleep and woken up with a blanket draped over his shoulders and breakfast waiting. The pieces of his adolescence were so scattered and steeped in the self-loathing that the curse brought, that he’d lived in a sort of perpetual distraction. This distraction often kept him from looking at the good things clearly or looking at the every day things at all. 

Sometimes Kyo would goad him into arm wrestling matches at this table. He’d tutored Tohru here, watching her expressions shift from confusion to sharp concentration, and then to understanding. He’d poured over student council work with Kakeru, when they were behind and Kakeru stretched out on the floor to pester him with comments in lieu of helping. _Do you ever...miss it?_

He felt Machi’s hand petting his hair. He shivered at her touch. He always did. 

He looked up at her, eyes unfocused and mouth drooping involuntarily. 

“You don’t look like much of a prince right now,” she said, but her voice was soft and fond. 

“I don’t look princely enough for you?” he said. He smiled, goofily, and something sparked up in his chest: nostalgia, longing, growing pains he didn’t realize still hurt. 

“When did you get so funny?” Machi said. She was still petting his hair. He thought he could fall asleep right here, like old times. 

He attempted a shrug. “It’s the trauma,” he said. 

Most people went home just after midnight. Tohru thanked her work friends profusely and sent them all home with leftover soba noodles and slices of cake. 

Yuki had promised to stay until sunrise. The whole band of them left agreed to stay up. They played cards and drank coffee. Uo told high school stories with details that Kyo loudly contested. Tohru discussed designs for wedding invitations with Hana and Machi. 

Yuki was tired, but excited when they finally stepped out onto the balcony to watch the sun’s slow ascent over the horizon. 

“It’s not the same as the roof,” Tohru whispered to him. She pulled a spare hat over his ears and smiled. Machi tucked in to his right side, and in the shuffle of squeezing everyone into the narrow balcony, Kyo ended up on his other side. 

“Hey,” Kyo said. 

Yuki was coming down now. He was almost embarrassed at his honesty earlier, embarrassed that he’d offered the joint at all. 

“Did you get in trouble?” Yuki asked, lightly. 

Kyo shook his head. “I really don’t understand a thing about you, do I?” he continued. He sounded almost angry, in a way that stirred up nostalgia again. They’d been looking right through each other for a long time, Yuki realized. And maybe he’d only hated Kyo because he hated himself. 

“I don’t know about that,” Yuki said. 

Kyo scoffed. “Well, I feel stupid. You’re different.”

“So are you.”

“And we’re grown now—“

“You maybe, you’re getting married. I don’t know if I’m close to grown.”

Kyo’s grip tightened on the balcony railing. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t think I do,” Yuki said. He turned to look at him. Kyo’s face was flushed again. 

“I never hated you, okay? I just needed someone to hate.”

Yuki’s breath caught in his throat. “You’re still high,” he said. 

“You’re a dick!” Kyo said. 

“That’s more like it,” Yuki said, cheerfully. And then, quieter: “I never hated you either.”

***

Yuki and Machi walked back to her apartment. The snow had stuck in a thin sheet that they disturbed gladly with their footprints. She anchored her hand to his. He was getting a headache. He’d probably spend today in bed, curled up tightly the way he still slept, though he couldn’t quite make himself as small and compact as a rat anymore. 

“Starting the new year on a good note, then?” Machi said, eyebrows raised into the messy line of her bangs. 

“My hangover doesn’t know it’s a holiday,” he said. 

“I can’t believe you shared Kakeru’s New Year’s joint with your cousin,” she said. “It sounds like a joke set up.”

Yuki laughed. “Niche joke.”

He remembered the first time he smoked with Machi. He’d been looking for the bathroom at a party Kakeru had dragged him to and when he pushed open the unlocked door, she was sitting in the windowsill with the window open. 

“I-It was unlocked, sorry,” he stuttered. Her face went bright red and she looked about to smack him when her brother burst in, holding a bong and genuinely locking the door behind him. 

Yuki remembered how pretty she’d looked in the haze of smoke, how it had been all he could think about even though the curse wasn’t broken and they weren’t yet dating. 

Machi had said that she felt like they were in that bathroom for hours. It was 20 minutes. She’d come in there to escape everyone she didn’t want to see. Somehow, the only two people she’d cared about found her anyway. 

“You kept staring,” she told him later. “I was so pissed at you, but I liked you too much to say anything.”

Machi squeezed his hand. 

“We’re here,” she said. They were in front of the apartment. She leaned up to kiss him. A splinter of pain shot through his poor, hungover head, but he smiled anyway. 

“We’re here,” he repeated. 

**Author's Note:**

> My Fruits Basket love has returned full force. I think 14 year old me would be proud tbh.


End file.
